Lizza List: Top Five Electoral Outcomes Journalists Are Secretly Rooting For

Let’s be honest, this has been an unusually fun campaign to cover. If reporters had secretly gathered early in 2011 and devised a list of G.O.P. contenders they wanted to cover, they never would have put together a group as colorful as what they eventually got. They certainly never would have predicted that Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul would all enjoy spells at the top of the polls. The people who cover American Presidential politics end 2011 a blessed and thankful group.

And yet there is the terrible realization that all this excitement and drama could come crashing down around us in less than two weeks if the sober and reasonable Mitt Romney ends the year of Republican nonsense by winning Iowa and New Hampshire and securing the nomination before things even really get started. Reporters won’t admit it, but they—we—are all rooting for a dramatic primary season in 2012. In the spirit of full disclosure, here are the top five scenarios campaign hacks dream about for the new year:

1. Ron Paul wins Iowa, does well in New Hampshire, and forces the Republican Party to confront Paul’s radical libertarianism head-on.

The truth is that no matter who actually gets the nomination, Ron Paul is the winner. Whatever happens on Tuesday, Paul has solidified his place as the most influential force in Republican politics over the last four years. In the 2007-2008 cycle he was treated like a pariah. John McCain, especially, oozed contempt for Paul and his ideas at the Republican debates. This time around, at least until he started posing an actual threat, Republicans were celebrating Paul’s intellectual contributions to the race. At the last debate, when George Stephanopoulos asked the candidates to “tell us the one thing you’ve learned from someone else, one of your challengers, on stage,” two of Paul’s colleagues showered him with praise. Rick Perry said Paul taught him a lot about the Federal Reserve, which Paul wants to abolish. Romney noted that Paul “ignites an enthusiasm with a number of people. That’s very exciting to watch.”

Paul beamed at the adulation. “Well, I have learned that you should never give up on your opposition,” he said. “Because if you’re persistent, and you present your case, they will come your way.”

2. Jon Huntsman wins New Hampshire.

Bottom line: the press loves Huntsman. Jacob Weisberg wrote an excellent and mostly positive profile for Vogue. Joe Klein says Huntsman “refuses to pander to the know-nothing zealots who’ve overrun his party” and has “proposed the most thoughtful roster of policy initiatives of any candidate in the race.” A number of reporters have become quite taken with Huntsman’s charming daughters. No candidate with Huntsman’s poll numbers has ever received more admiring coverage. Part of the reason for this is that, for many journalists, credentials matter. Huntsman may not be doing well in the polls, but there is a sense among the meritocrats of the press corps that a former two-term governor and ambassador who has served in Washington under three different Presidents should be doing better. There is something off-kilter about a system that doesn’t reward someone like Huntsman. If Romney demolishes his competition in Iowa, don’t be surprised if Huntsman gets elevated as the new anti-Romney.

3. A late entry shakes up the field.

As anyone who has been reading The Weekly Standard knows, some conservatives are desperately searching, even at this late hour, for some other Republican, one who can enter the race and save the party from having to nominate the listless Romney or—even worse—one of his fringe opponents. In a recent editorial, Bill Kristol, citing Thomas Paine as inspiration, implored other Republicans to join the fray:

Now is not a time for leaders to engage in clever calculations of the odds of success, or to succumb to concerns about how they will look if they enter the fray and fall short. Now is a time to come to the aid of our country.

Many reporters would add: “and to the aid of campaign journalism.”

4. The contest is a muddle that is decided at a brokered convention.

Because of recent changes to the rules Republicans use to allocate convention delegates, it is more difficult for a candidate to end the contest early, the way John McCain did in 2008. That fact has many pundits speculating that the race could go on longer that usual, like the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did. Naturally, as happens every four years, reporters are hoping no candidate collects enough delegates to win the nomination, and the Republican convention in Tampa later this year is transformed from a three-day advertisement for the G.O.P. into a messy brawl.

5. Rick Santorum wins Iowa and much of the English-speaking world Googles his name.

Try it yourself, but please not at work or when children are in the room.

Photograph by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

Ryan Lizza is the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, and also an on-air contributor for CNN.